When Patterson and McCormick could not agree on the editorial content of the Chicago paper, the two cousins decided at a meeting in Paris that Patterson would work on the project of launching a Tribune-owned newspaper in New York. On his way back, Patterson met with Alfred Harmsworth, who was the Viscount Northcliffe and publisher of the Daily Mirror, London's tabloid newspaper. Impressed with the advantages of a tabloid, Patterson launched the Daily News on June 26, 1919.[7]

The Daily News was not an immediate success, and by August 1919, the paper's circulation had dropped to 26,625.[7] Still, New York's many subway commuters found the tabloid format easier to handle, and readership steadily grew. By the time of the paper's first anniversary in June 1920, circulation was over 100,000 and by 1925, over a million. Circulation reached its peak in 1947, at 2.4 million daily and 4.7 million on Sunday.[8]

The Daily News carried the slogan "New York's Picture Newspaper" from 1920 to 1991, for its emphasis on photographs, and a camera has been part of the newspaper's logo from day one. The paper's later slogan, developed from a 1985 ad campaign, is "New York's Hometown Newspaper", while another has been "The Eyes, the Ears, the Honest Voice of New York". The Daily News continues to include large and prominent photographs, for news, entertainment and sports, as well as intense city news coverage, celebrity gossip, classified ads, comics, a sports section, and an opinion section.

News-gathering operations were, for a time, organized using two-way radios operating on 173.3250 MHz (radio station KEA 871), allowing the assignment desk to communicate with its personnel who utilized a fleet of "radio cars".

The paper briefly published a Monday-Friday afternoon counterpart, Daily News Tonight, between 1978 and 1981; this competed with the New York Post, which had earlier launched a morning edition to complement its evening newspaper. Occasional "P.M. Editions" were published as extras in 1991, during the brief tenure of Robert Maxwell as publisher.

In 1982, and again in the early 1990s during a newspaper strike, the Daily News almost went out of business. In the 1982 instance, the parent Tribune Company offered the tabloid up for sale. In 1991, millionaire Robert Maxwell offered financial assistance to the News to help it stay in business. When Maxwell died shortly thereafter, the News seceded from his publishing empire, which eventually splintered under questions about whether Maxwell had the financial backing to sustain it. After Maxwell's death in 1991, the paper was held together in bankruptcy by existing management, led by editor James Willse, who became interim publisher after buying the paper from Tribune. Mort Zuckerman bought the paper in 1993.

From its founding until 1991, the Daily News was owned by the Tribune Company. In 1948, the News established WPIX (Channel 11 in New York City), whose call letters were based on the News's nickname of "New York's Picture Newspaper"; and later bought what became WPIX-FM, which is now known as WFAN-FM. The television station became a Tribune property outright in 1991, and remains in the former Daily News Building; the radio station was purchased by Emmis Communications, and since 2014 has been owned by CBS Radio as an FM simulcast of its AM namesake.

The News also maintains local bureaux in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, at City Hall, within One Police Plaza, and at the various state and federal courthouses in the city.

On September 4, 2017, tronc, the publishing operations of the former Tribune Company (which had spun out its publishing assets to separate them from its broadcast assets), announced that it had acquired the Daily News.[11] Tronc had bought the Daily News for $1, assuming "operational and pension liabilities". By the time of purchase, circulation had dropped to 200,000 on weekdays and 260,000 on Sundays.[12] In July 2018, tronc fired half of the paper's editorial staff, including the editor-in-chief, Jim Rich. Rich was replaced by Robert York, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of tronc-owned The Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania.[13] The paper's social media staff were included in the cut; images and memes that were later deleted were posted on its Twitter feed.[14][15]

New York Times journalist Alan Feuer said the Daily News focuses heavily on "deep sourcing and doorstep reporting", providing city-centered "crime reportage and hard-hitting coverage of public issues [...] rather than portraying New York through the partisan divide between liberals and conservatives".[16] According to Feuer, the paper is known for "speaking to and for the city’s working class" and for "its crusades against municipal misconduct".[16]

From its founding, it was based at 23 Park Place, a block from City Hall, and two blocks from Park Row, the traditional home of the city's newspaper trade. The cramped conditions demanded a much larger space for the growing newspaper.

From 1929 to 1995, the Daily News was based in the landmark skyscraper at 220 East 42nd Street near Second Avenue, designed by John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood. The paper moved to 450 West 33rd Street in 1995, but the 42nd Street location is still known as The News Building and still features a giant globe and weather instruments in its lobby. (It was the model for the Daily Planet building of the first two Superman films). The former News subsidiary WPIX-TV remains in the building.

The third headquarters of the Daily News at 450 West 33rd Street straddled the railroad tracks going into Pennsylvania Station. The building is now the world headquarters of the Associated Press.

In June 2011, the paper moved its operations to two floors at 4 New York Plaza in lower Manhattan.[22] Sixteen months later, the structure was severely damaged and rendered uninhabitable by flooding from Hurricane Sandy. In the immediate aftermath, news operations were conducted remotely from several temporary locations, eventually moving to office space at the Jersey City printing plant.[23] In early 2013, operations moved to rented space at 1290 Avenue of the Americas near Rockefeller Center—just four blocks north of its rival New York Post. The staff returned to the permanent 4 New York Plaza location in early November 2013.

In 2017, the Daily News was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in collaboration with non-profit ProPublica "for uncovering, primarily through the work of reporter Sarah Ryley, widespread abuse of eviction rules by the police to oust hundreds of people, most of them poor minorities."[32]

In 1928, a News reporter strapped a small camera to his leg, and shot a photo of Ruth Snyder being executed in the electric chair.[33] The next day's newspaper carried the headline "DEAD!".

October 30, 1975, front page

On October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford gave a speech denying federal assistance to spare New York City from bankruptcy. The front page of the October 30, 1975 Daily News read: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.”[34] Ford later said the headline had played a role in his losing the 1976 presidential election.[35]

In the year leading up to the 2016 presidential election, the paper's headlines became more provocative, helping to rejuvenate it and, with more opinionated editorials with the aforementioned headlines, once again demonstrate its place in the city's media.[36]

Following the 2015 San Bernardino shooting, in which 14 people were killed, the paper's front page displayed "GOD ISN'T FIXING THIS" along with tweets from Republican politicians offering thoughts and prayers.[37] The paper advocated for tighter gun laws, condemning what it described as "empty platitudes and angry rhetoric" rather than action "in response to the ongoing plague of gun violence in our country."[37][38] The provocative headline[37][38] received both praise and criticism.[39]

On January 2016, after Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz of Texas disparaged "New York values" in a Republican primary debate, the News responded with a cover page headline reading "DROP DEAD, TED" and showing the Statue of Liberty giving the middle finger.[40]

During the kidnapping of Peter Weinberger in 1956, the media was asked not to publish the story of the kidnapping as it risked the investigation and safe recovery. All but one newspaper, the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, agreed.

The New York Daily News took advantage of their competitors silence to capitalize on the sensationalism of the case, publishing the story on the front page. The resulting media storm that unleashed caused curious onlookers to camp out and harass the Weinbergers at their place of residence and greatly hindered the recovery of the kidnapped baby.

The direct result of the New York Daily News decision to profiteer at the expense of a baby's life and a family's dismay, was a failed exchange where the kidnapper was unable to retrieve the ransom. This led to the kidnapper abandoning the kidnapped Weinberger baby by the side of the road where he died of neglect and exposure.

The Daily News supported the Iraq War.[41] On March 14, 2003, six days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Daily News reported "President Bush is targeting an aggressive, dangerous, psychotic dictator who has stockpiled weapons of mass destruction and would use them without compunction. ... With Saddam in power, there can be no peace. One argument you hear raised against war is fear of retaliation: America mustn't upset the terrorists. After 9/11, does this even need to be rebutted? Terrorists have killed thousands of Americans already and thirst for more. Fighting back is a necessity, unless people want the peace of the grave."[42]

^O'Dea, Coleen (December 12, 2011). "Can Urban Transit Hubs Help Revitalize New Jersey's Cities?". Jersey City Independent. Retrieved December 16, 2011. ... state expects to award the first $41.7 million in credits soon to the Daily News, which is spending $100 million on three new presses at its site in Jersey City.